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Winnipeg man proposes at ‘Oprah’ finale

Alex Babinsky got down on one knee in front of thousands and popped the question to his girlfriend

Alex Babinsky got down on one knee before an Oprah audience of 13,000 and asked Jenna Steinsvik to be his wife. She accepted.
(Supplied photo)

By Ashante Infantry

Fri., May 20, 2011

Since about the day they met two years ago, Alex Babinsky has been trying to figure out an “over-the-top” way to propose to his girlfriend, Jenna Steinsvik.

The Winnipeg firefighter certainly nailed it with his blockbuster surprise at the taping of the Oprah Winfrey finale at Chicago’s United Centre on Tuesday.

Babinsky, 23, got down on one knee before an audience of 13,000 -- which included former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, comedian Dave Chappelle and retired NFLer Emmitt Smith -- and asked Steinsvik to be his wife.

The crowd roared when she accepted.

In retrospect, 25-year-old Steinsvik said Babinsky began “acting super weird” when they picked up the Oprah tickets the previous day and realized her online application had yielded front row seats for the free show.

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“He was so hyped, he kept asking ‘What are you wearing’ and he’s usually not concerned about that,” Steinsvik recalled in a phone interview from the pair’s Winnipeg home.

His behaviour was particularly curious since Steinsvik was supposed to attend the event with her mother.

The young lovers were accompanied on the 15-hour drive from Winnipeg by Steinsvik’s mom and dad. The women were slated to attend the Oprah spectacular while Babinsky and Steinsvik’s father remained at the hotel with the couple’s 6-month-old son, Ryan.

Babinsky had contacted the Oprah show’s producers about proposing, but didn’t know it was a go until he heard his name over a loudspeaker just before the program began.

“They said it was a jam-packed show and I should have no expectations, but they may be able to slide me in,” he said.

With the newly purchased ring stowed in his right sock leg, the night before the show, Babinsky asked his intended’s dad for permission and clued in her mom, who agreed to feign illness and give up her seat.

“It just felt like a dream,” she said. “I’m a big Oprah fan and then to get a proposal, it’s a lot to take in. I just kept looking at my finger.”

The show included stars like Tom Hanks, Madonna, Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder, so the pair doesn’t know if their proposal will make the cut when the show airs next Monday and Tuesday.

In any case, they’ve had plenty from friends and media since returning home on Wednesday.

“It’s just been crazy,” Steinsvik said. “It’s nice people care and are so supportive.”

Before the Oprah event popped, Babinsky was considering an underwater proposal on the Hawaii vacation the couple have planned for this fall.

“I wanted to wait for the perfect moment to make it special,” he said. “I wanted everyone to know, because she’s such a caring, loving, sweet person.

“I think this topped everything.”

A Georgia couple, however, are the current champs of “Greatest Marriage Proposal Ever.”

A seven-minute video depicting the unique proposal of Matt Still and Ginny Joiner has logged nearly three million hits since it was posted on YouTube three days ago.

In the clip, caregiver Joiner, 26, is at an Atlanta-area movie theatre with her brother when, instead of previews, a video starring insurance salesman Still, 30, begins to play.

It shows him asking her father for permission to propose and ends with him bounding into the movie in real-time with a ring.

“We were extremely shocked by it,” Still told the Atlanta Journal Constitution of the viral hit. “We posted it just so our friends and family who couldn’t be in the audience could see it. It just spread.”

-with Star wires

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